2 December 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 4
Iowa
oh I cannot mention what I saw but I will tell you that it involved a celebrity.
his hair was blond and so you know it was a man.
he wore a bathing suit on the cover of a movie cassette box of a movie that nobody saw at all not even my friend frenchy.
"never heard of it" my friend frenchy said and then smiled holding the box that read "children of paradise." and then he twitched. the soft belly of celebrity, wearing orangey tight surfer jams.
chasing his "friend" with a red hot poker assured that celebrity a place in my dreams. sometimes you say "why." sometimes you say to your friend "don't ask why." let's go, everyone says.
in the dream the blond celebrity wasn't near the water. he wasn't in a spelling bee. he wasn't spelling the word "incorrigible." like a real dream, he wasn't anywhere. but when he smiled, a row of corn in iowa burst into flames.
the flames were right where I used to stand, waiting in line, for a movie that nobody ever saw.
About the author:
Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and bicycle collector living in Carrboro, North Carolina. He has two sons, Ono and Lego. His work has been published in Pif, Quarterly, No Exit, Poetry Project, Big Bridge, Stirring, Swagazine, Megaera, and other venues. His latest work is a collection of poetry that he has written over the last, oh, let's say twenty years, tentatively entitled Yes I Don't. It will be published in October of 2004 through the auspices of Oyster Boy Review.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Ricky Garni at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 3, No. 4, where "Iowa" ran on December 2, 2003. List other work with these same labels: poetry, prose poem.
